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6/28/2016

Fragmented notes brought home from the Fundamental Rights Forum

The EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) organised the first
European Fundamental Rights Forum in Vienna on 20-23 June 2016. The event brought
together about 700 people from and beyond Europe from policy, practice,
governments, civil society, research, arts and several other fields. The
organisers did the huge job of discussing the issues of inclusion, the refugee
crisis and digital challenges on a human rights basis by providing the
organisers with an enormous amount of food for thought as well as opportunities
for networking and discussion.

The following paragraphs are not intended to be a full
report, but rather a collection of a few thoughts and issues that echoed in me
as president of EPA, vice president of the Lifelong Learning and Social
Platforms, as a child rights activist for over 25 years, as an apt reader, a
Hungarian and a mother. It is unusual for this blog, but I hope they will also
resonate with the readers, and given the richness of the programme I couldn’t
find any other ways to make a report.

The main and mainstream policy areas that kept being
challenged were the necessity of the nation state in a globalised world, the
need for protecting the borders of Europe from refugees, and the need to
install surveillance systems and thus violate rights. The role of education,
civil society, cities and mothers were highlighted by several speakers
regardless their topic and institutional background. A vivid picture by one of
the speakers called present political actions an act of only moving the deck
chairs on Titanic. The need to ‘go
beyond the glass ceiling of politeness’ was another very easy-to-visualise
starting point.

The hosting country, Austria is a real example of openness
in times of humanitarian crisis as well as of the present success of those
supporting the raise of hatred and xenophobia on national levels. Austria has
proven its openness not only by accepting 88,000 asylum applications in 2015,
but also to offer asylum to Hungarian refugees in 1956 and welcoming our fellow
Hungarian fleeing the country nowadays. This was perfectly illustrated by the
winner of a school competition on human rights, a little film showing the right
to mother tongue by introducing a Hungarian-speaking girl. Yes, in Vienna a
newly arrived migrant is very likely to speak Hungarian, they hugely outnumber
the 88,000 refugees. At the same time people living in the countryside nearly managed to elect a far-right president only a few weeks ago.

The thought by Frans Timmermans, Vice President of the European Commission opening the Forum, resonating most with me was that looking at the past will
not help solve today’s problems. It was a re-occurring issue: those countries –
like my own – that are highly obsessed by their history are the more likely to
violate human rights and not to be open to newcomers. He also emphasised, that
he believes – regardless official EU policies and trends – fundamental rights
must be in the core of the EU’s response to the challenges of migration, while
solidarity must be balanced against the fear of losing our identity. He also emphasised that diversity is the most
outstanding feature of Europe and it should remain to be highly awarded.

The Romanian State Secretary of Justice called the audience’s
attention to the fact that in the EU we often use very complicated language and
invent new phrases, often just to hide the fact that we have failed. He also
challenged the EU target of economic growth while living in times of a human
rights crisis. A civil society representative further contributed to this by
saying people, especially young people are not interested in politics, because
it is not in their own terms, plus politicians are afraid to talk to youth as
they are likely to challenge them. His message was also highlighted by his
Swedish colleague who underlined that human rights were not invented for the
sunny days, and these days are not sunny.

Coming back to Eastern Europe, two speeches supported each
other, by on the one hand simply stating that this area is unable to live up to
today’s challenges, since rights protection has never really been implemented,
while the level of individuality as compared to the importance of community is
high. On the other hand the solution was identified to be education, and active
citizenship exercised first in schools by students given real responsibilities.

An MEP with migrant background called the attention to also
think about those already in Europe, not only those arriving now. It can
prevent the creation of extra tension. Stefan Hertmans, a Belgian writer
introduced the issue of European-bred Islamic extremists, a group of
post-modern, extremely well-connected, fast and resourceful people, but also a
group that has felt excluded in their birthplace, Europe.

Kate Gilmore, Deputy High Commissioner on Human Rights
introduced the issue of globalisation into the discourse, by emphasising that it
is not possible to have a global system of communication, transport, and a global
economy while sustaining national-interest-led policy. She said that we have to
find a global solution as there is no Planet B. One global challenge, climate change
was also discussed as a bad climate for human rights by some speakers. Benjamin
Barber went as far as challenging the nation state in general, the shear
existence of national borders, and
called for an interdependent network of cities, them being the most innovative
and most traditional existing structures.

Prof. James Hathaway was challenging the EU asylum policies
saying that too much is spent on managing the asylum systems instead of
introducing a kind of insurance policy, based on respecting rights and
responsibility, offering assisted access instead of barriers, early assignment
instead of spending money on determining refugee status later, no detainment,
but offering the possibility to get right to their lives, supporting third
countries with most refugees and supporting refugee startups, accompanied by organised
resettlement.

The first Director of FRA called the Mediterranean the bloodiest
sea at present. He challenged the possibility even to mention ‘too many rights
for refugees’ while all EU countries have ratified eg. the UNCRC. He also
called the attention to the fact that the EU is not facing a number crisis, but
suffering from a lack of solidarity and bad management. He also praised civil society
for offering long-term support as well as cities opening their gates where
national governments often failed. According to him humanitarian robustness is
there regardless newspaper headlines.

Another re-occuring theme was participation and empowerment,
participation that should not be confused with representation, and empowerment
as the basis of all human rights approaches, where the power is of the people and
not of governments. One aspect of participation, inclusion and their being
restricted was identified in the issue of language, the necessity to speak the
majority language. At the same time for real inclusion we should not talk about
tolerance anymore, but we should aim at non-criticism. In this respect it is
very important what teachers and parents say, but schoolbooks should also be
inclusive, and not just show stereotypes. The role of media as well as
mother-power were important elements mentioned in discussing there aspects.
According to one of the contributors one key element is to educate girls and
let them become intelligent women, as terrorists are afraid of them.

On security and digital rights the quickly spreading mass surveillance
policies and people’s ignorance of their dangers were also put in the
limelight. In this respect it was asked how we make other aware of the value of
our rights and prevent them being restricted for short-term trade-offs. Privacy
protection is a key issue. As one of the speakers said ‘if you have nothing to
hide, you don’t have a life; go and have a life.’

Another topic raised by several speaker was economy,
businesses and entrepreneurship. The evident still needs to be emphasised: the
main role of businesses is to provide decent jobs for decent pay, to make it
possible for everybody, also newly arrived migrants, to provide for their
families in a dignified way. The connection between businesses and human rights
primarily is not about how you donate money, but how you earn it. In this field
we need to be ‘possibilists’, looking at what is possible and setting a 100%
target (if the target is 90%, 50% will try to opt out). It is also important to
rethink the distinction between formal and informal economies, based on the
success of share economy and other startups. It is also important not to only
talk about entrepreneurial spirit, but also appraise intrapreneurs, the people
who are willing to reform existing structures. In the field of economy one of the largest
issues is that while the differences between large economies are decreasing,
economic differences within these economies (eg. USA, China, India) are larger
than ever.

If you are interested in more a formal report, or want to
listen to or read some or all contributions, visit the official website of the
Forum here.

If you are interested in human rights in general you will find the homepage of FRA informative.

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